1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display system for displaying image data, and more particularly, to an image display system whereby, even when image data has been altered, an unaltered image is displayed.
Moreover, the present invention relates to an image display system suitable for use in a document management system, and to an image registration terminal device and reading terminal device constituting this system.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, various types of documents are issued by government offices, banks, insurance companies, private businesses, stores, and the like. In general, these documents are represented by text (or characters), diagrams (or graphic symbols), figures (or numerals), symbols (or Japanese-style stamped mark), and the like. In order to issue or refer to such documents, or to publish same for official use, image data for a document is first stored in a host computer or server, and then the image data is read out to a terminal by operations performed at the terminal. Examples of such documents include, for example, residence cards, seal registration certificates, insurance certificates, bank books, receipts, and the like. The image data is also displayed when it is registered in the host computer or server.
In conventional image display systems, image data read in by means of an image scanner, or the like, is stored in a storage device capable of holding a large volume of data, such as an optical disk device, or the like. The image data can be displayed by a display device connected to the storage device by means of a LAN (local area network), or the like. Image data stored on paper, or the like, is read in by an image scanner and converted to a digital image. This digital image is then embedded with an electronic watermark by a program for inserting electronic watermarks implemented by a personal computer, thereby yielding an electronically watermarked digital image. The electronically watermarked digital image is stored in the optical disk device. This electronically watermarked digital image is also transmitted to a display device and is stored in a disk cache connected to the display device.
When displaying image data, generally, a digital image stored in a disk cache is read in, and it is checked whether or not there are any alterations in the digital image. If no alteration is detected, then the image is displayed on the display device, and if an alteration is detected, then information indicating the location of the alteration is displayed on the display device along with the image. By means of this display method, the operator can recognize if there have been any alterations to the digital image, and can take measures, such as reading out unaltered image data from the optical disk device.
However, in a conventional image display system as described above, if an alteration is detected in the image data, then the operator of the display device must separately read out unaltered image data from the optical disk device, and hence ease of operation is poor.
On the other hand, conventionally, image display systems used in document management systems for disclosure of documents have been employed.
FIG. 24 is a diagram showing constituent elements of a document management system and the connection relations for same, in order to describe one example of a conventional image display system for disclosing documents. In this system 100, an image registration terminal (simply called ‘registration terminal’) 102, a document management server 104, and a reading terminal device (simply called a ‘reading terminal’) 106 are mutually linked by means of a network 108. As commonly known, the registration terminal 102, document management server 104 and reading terminal 106 respectively comprise basic constituent elements, such as a computer processing section, image display section, memory, input section, output section, drive section, and the like. As the input section for the registration terminal 102, an image scanner 110 is provided for reading in the documents and converting same to image data. Furthermore, the reading terminal 106 comprises a printer 112 which is enabled to read in documents that are to be disclosed.
In order to aid understanding of this invention, firstly, a simple description is given of the operation of the image display system for document management according to the prior art.
FIG. 25 shows one example of information for disclosure, in other words, a document (also called ‘original’) that is to be disclosed, according to the prior art. The paper information shown on the original document 120 that is to be disclosed comprises, for example, information such as ‘Receipt’ as the title of the original document, ‘Jun. 30, 2000’ as the date of issue, ‘OX Electric Co.’ as the addressee, ‘Amount: 65000 Yen’ as the amount, ‘Note: For food supplies’ as the proviso, ‘Kappou Ryori SATO’ as the name of the issuing party, and so on. Here, an example is described where the amount and the name of the issuing party are information contents which are not to be disclosed.
The information in paper form is converted to image data (electronic data) by means of the image scanner 110 of the registration terminal 102. On the other hand, index data is created consisting of an indexing keywords which are input by means of a keyboard, or the like, of the input section, and reference attributes (REF attributes) for identifying the correlation thereof with the relevant image data. The image data is stored in the memory of the registration terminal 102 along with the index data.
One example of conventional index data is shown in FIG. 26. The format used to express this index data 122 is the document description language XML (extensible Markup Language). In FIG. 26, of the expressions <XX>, <XX□□/“OO”/>, and the like, XX is a ‘tag’ name, the □□ after the tag is an ‘attribute’ name, and the OO shown inside “ ”and marked by = following the ‘attribute’ name is the ‘attribute value’ corresponding to the ‘attribute’ name.
The indexing keywords contain information indicating that disclosure is acceptable and information indicating that disclosure is not acceptable. In the present example, information that can be disclosed is selected by the indexing keywords, these indexes being ‘Receipt’, ‘20000630’ and ‘YAMADA TARO’. The ‘YAMADA TARO’ following the ‘Madeby’ tag is not indicated on the receipt, but it is the name of the party providing the receipt.
The attribute value of the attribute (ref =) of the ‘Image’ tag is ‘#Image/Image.jpg’, and this forms index data which is associated with the image data.
FIG. 27 shows one example of a file composition for representing index data. Here, the lowest levels of the ‘Current directory’ 1 of the file are ‘Image directory’ 2 and ‘Index.xml’ 3. Moreover, the lower level of the ‘Image directory’ is ‘Image.jpg’ 4.
Image data and index data are stored in the document management server 104 by means of the network 108.
On the other hand, a party seeking disclosure of the document makes an application for disclosure thereof to the operator of a reading terminal device 106. The operator is acknowledged by the party disclosing the information that information suitable for disclosure has been selected; this party is also called the information disclosing party. On the basis of the aforementioned application, the operator accesses the server 104 by operating the input section of the reading terminal 106, searches for index data for the original document corresponding to the disclosure application, as previously registered in the document management server, reads out the image data associated with this index data, and stores this image data in the memory of the reading device, whilst also displaying same on the screen display section of the reading device.
Supposing that the original document to be disclosed has the contents illustrated in FIG. 25, the whole contents of the original document are contained in the image data displayed on the screen display section of the reading terminal 106, as shown in FIG. 28. Here, it is assumed that of the information in the image data region shown as the image data information, the regions of contents ‘OX Electric Co.’ surrounded by the dotted frame 132 and the contents ‘Kappou Ryori SATO’ surrounded by the dotted frame 134 are non-disclosed regions, and the information in these respective regions is taken as information that is not to be disclosed to the applicant (also called ‘non-disclosed information’).
In this case, the operator controls the input section of the reading terminal 106 whilst observing the displayed image, to perform amendment of the image data by selecting the non-disclosed regions and processing the images inside these regions (known as ‘image data processing’). By performing this data amendment, these regions are blacked out so that they assume a state where they cannot be read on the screen at any time, and index data is created indicating this state, the amended image data and the index data corresponding to same being stored in a memory. The image data after amendment is shown by 140 in FIG. 29. Furthermore, the blacked out section 142 is a region corresponding to the non-disclosed region 132 in FIG. 28, whilst the blacked out section 144 is a region corresponding to the non-disclosed region 134 in FIG. 28.
The image data obtained in this manner is read out from the memory and supplied to the output section. The output section performs direct processing of the corresponding image data, thereby creating data of the kind illustrated in FIG. 29, and according to requirements, it is output to a printer 112 to create a printed document, forming a document which can be provided to the applicant.
In a conventional image display system for document management of this kind, at the image registration terminal device, no decisions are made, and furthermore, no suggestions are provided, with regard to which of the contents of a document that is to be disclosed should be designated as non-disclosed information, apart from those contents which are previously designated as being suitable for disclosure. Therefore, the image data and corresponding index data read out from the document management server by the reading terminal device contains no data which designates or suggests regions of the image data that are not to be disclosed. Consequently, unless amendment processing of some kind is carried out with respect to this image data, the whole of the document information, including information that should be non-disclosed information, will be presented to the applicant in a readable state.
Therefore, conventionally, the operator on the reading side (party disclosing the information) sets the non-disclosed regions of the image data regions according to his or her own wishes, and must perform amendment processing in such a manner that these regions cannot be read.
Therefore, in a conventional image display system, the operation from receiving a request for disclosure of information until creating a document to be provided to the applicant which includes the contents that are to be disclosed, is inefficient.
Furthermore, there is a risk that each time that an application for disclosure of information is made, the designation of information contents that are not to be disclosed will be different, thereby undermining the credibility of the information contents that are disclosed.